IT'S JUST AUXILARY FEATURE, IT'S NEVER INTENDED TO BE THE PRIMARY WAY OF GETTING MAPS.

Hello, as you know I am working on image 2 map converter . Question is : how do we code the room types and the seat's ownership ( player's color ) . Combining the two in one image is troublesome : having two pixel values to be used in place of one : so either we could use the players color, and the brightness factor ( the brightness codes the room type) plus we could ship extra picture -- with table - pallete : like rows : player color , columns: room color . The alternative is as Bertram's layers :

Why not add a second image where only the rooms/traps are listed using the team color? This way, a user could simply edit the file as a second layer on GIMP for instance, and then export each layer as an image, and voilà! What do you think?

Please give your votes, which way would appear the most handy for you ....

For an artist it might be tainting to have in-game editor , cause such people like to visualize , how the things look like.Programmers, on the other hand , probably would vote for image editors , cause they like all the tricks you get for free when editing such image ( copying pastying various shapes , resizing , color fill-in of sub-chunk etc. ... ) I don't know why you are so stubborn for tiled editor, as it won't have neither of those features ...EDIT : Ohh my, just leave your votes in here, please, >> tertium non datur <<

I think tiled would be better than messing with images, if we really want to be able to use an external editor. It already has a map format, rather than making some combination of images and text files.

Suppose on our standard map we don;t have enough gold , and we would liek the gold to be put more or less randomly in separated groups : Than we open our favouirite editor and use the spray tool :

Too empty at the bottom ? No problem just copy , paste and rotate :

I feel like an explorer among amazon native Indians : " What are those DAYS OF THE WEEK ?" -<EXPLAINING > -" Yeah , but what those are for ? "- <EXPLAINING> " Don't make us fools !!! We ain't that stupid !"

I didn't see all the fuss around this feature yet but it's clear we should pause it for a minute and speak about something we all agree before moving on.

Now for the current facts:- At the moment, there is a editor mode implemented in the game, and it's 3/4 working. A few days on it, and it will be usable, not perfect but usable, or I do think so.

- Paul has implemented import/export functions as image as you all know and is now wondering how to finish the feature before presenting it to the world.

- Some of you would like to use Tiled as a map editor for OD.

Pros/cons:-> Using tiled:+++ Tiled is well done, smart and stable.- Tiled is generic and works with XML as default, but can export to Lua and Json.? OD doesn't support other format than own-made text ones, so is there a Tiled format we could reuse without spending a month of dev time coding to support it?- Dropping the current integrated map editor??(I'm not fond using some binary blob for tiles array such as used per default in Tiled, just in case, so I'd rather use csv or something like that.)- Yet another map format.

-> Using TGA map format:+ Can be edited on an image/pixel editor, so large area can be shaped quickly, existing images can be reused for funny shapes.+ The code can be (re)used to preview maps.+ Can be used as an import/export format only, so it's not the real way to create maps.- Image editors aren't map editors at all so it will be a bit technical.- Yet another map format.- Level files would be composed of even more files, if it's more than an import format.

-> Not using TGA map format:+ More simple, less code, less dev time, less bugs.+ A unique file for levels.- Maps cannot be shaped as quickly as in Tiled or using an image.

Please, guys, vote for one of those propositions, make another one or add pros/cons:Once we have a consensus upon which way to take, we'll resume with Paul's survey.

Good exposition Bertram, if Tiled maps cant be imported directly then our existing editor is superior to it just because its already in there.Using Paul´s TGA map to create the overall shape (or even some ramdom map using noise creator) and then fine tuning it with our editor is a better option than Tiled.

In fact Paul´s option sounds good for populating big maps and maybe giving them shapes (the cock-shaped level now must go in )While our editor is better for small scale editing; so in the end developing our editor is a need and they will compliment each other.

My concerns:is really needed then the dual images format? i would settle for using Paul´s TGA map ONLY for the map shape, not for objects, traps, creatures... since that would put us pixel hunting, looking at color tables translations for something that can be easily done with our editor (and in a more confortable way).

I think using an image editor for anything else than the tile layout is going to be clunky. If we want to make a much more advanced map format, we might want to consider an existing one. After looking at the tmx format, I'm not really sure if it fits our purposes very well.

The maps are still going to require text information, so either you would have to bundle it in the metadata somehow, which may get overwritten by the image editors (not sure if you can even do that with tga), or use multiple files and put them in an archive or something. So we would need to make some fancy format anyhow.

If we want our own format and we want to use images to describe the tile layout, I think using 2 layers would make things easier for the editor, but it would also mean a lot of separate images, as png and tga doesn't support layers, and using XCF or PSD files would be not be practical.

From what I understand, you guys wouldn't be against using the image format as an importation option used to shape maps the quick way?If yes, then I understand without any problem that the image format used should be more common (PNG > TGA) and that Rooms/Traps/Creaturesdon't matter at that level. (if it still matters as Paul pointed out we've got support for a lot of images format through Ogre.)Hence, we wouldn't need two images or layers anymore, and we wouldn't need to keep the image once imported and saved back in the native level format.

So would you agree Paul if we:- Make image imported when selecting it in a menu in the editor mode? (The file format may be more free, I guess)- Reuse the map data to create a preview in the new shiny map selection menu made by hwoarangmy?

I am necroposting this thread to allow implementation of map from image feature . How should it look like ? IMHO : in EDITOR there should be two new buttons : save to image and load an image, do you agree guys ?

FYI, I've also done a java program that converts an image to a map. It is much more basic than what you seem to want to do as it only builds the shape of the map. pixels with alpha are converted as full rock, gray pixels as full dirt, green as gold, blue as water and red as lava.This allows to create maps pretty fast and that's what I used for the maps I recently added.

But IMHO, you are going for something much too complex. Coding room types and seat ownership (considering there is no max seat number) seems pretty hard to me. And not usefull. IMHO, using this feature for the map shape is enough. If, after playing a bit, you think there is not enough gold in one place, you can manually add it, you don't need to go to the editor to just add a few blocks.But keep in mind that this will only be used by coders. Map makers will probably not used such advanced features having to mess with 2 images to define ownership. Something too complex will mean only used by yourself.

My newest proposal is to have image editor build into the game editor . The user could switch back and forth between the two views , one of them being the image editor , where he could draw the map as in paint programs. Notice there are many open source programs similar to M$ paint, that way the work implementing it would be in 90% already done.

For my part, if you have to embed another (big) library, I will be against. Our executable is already pretty big with many dependencies and the editor (and thus, the conversion to image) is not the main feature since most players will only play and won't mess with editing maps. If you really want to go this way, the best would be to use a separated project (like the master server).

Well, they are long to create, they are long to upload and download.Moreover, new dependencies make the whole process for newcomers who would try to help on coding harder. As you have seen, we don't have hundreds of people willing to contribute. The more complex the compilation/dependencies process are, the less likely people will contribute. And I know what I'm talking about. Before coming to OD project, I started to try compiling Widelands (another game based on another old game called Settlers 2). But I gave up after trying to download some dependencies and see that I was still missing many.ATM, newcomers would have to compile boost, sfml, ogre dependencies, ogre, cegui dependencies and cegui. That's already a lot and enough to discourage many people. The more we have, the worst it will be.